I blame her. I
blame her because she had me believing I could quit them easily,
stuff them in the inside pocket of an old jacket, smother them
between the leaves of a book I’d never read again, tear up a square
section of my bedroom carpeting, nailing it down afterward so their
retrieval would feel like a chore, so I'd sleep safe. That’s what
Madame Kay told me to do.

“You can’t
silence them completely,” she’d said, “but you can muffle their
voices so you don’t know what they’re saying.”

I blame her. I
blame her for leaving the Psychic Line, for wanting to be back home
with her ailing mother, for telling me she was sorry on her last day
answering the phone, sounding like she was choking back tears
calling me by my child instead of the name I’d given. “My child,”
she’d said, “we’ve made such strides.”

When we began
our work together, she promised they’d eventually pitter patter like
drops of rain on my window glass, and they did for the most part,
for as long as I knew Madame Kay was on the job. If there was
trouble, I’d call her and tell her it was thundering again. “Close
your eyes,” she’d say, and then transport me places, the Voyageur
Bus Terminal, Wal-Mart, telling me I should learn to mind my own
business, holding my hand when I was too scared from seeing their
faces. But these voices were just people going about their daily
lives. “See? Quit your eavesdropping,” she’d said, asking me if I
felt like a cup of hot cocoa from the concession stand. “It’s you
doing the eavesdropping.”

When I was
small, sleeping in the basement room my parents had finished just
for me, I would listen to the furnace starting up, buckling the wood
paneling on my walls, taking the air out of my room, my lungs, so I
couldn’t call out for help. I’d learned it was best to tuck my feet
in under the blanket, rock my body until I was wrapped tight, and
just listen -- to the burners hissing madly, to the footsteps coming
closer, shutting my eyes when I thought they were nearer my bed.

I blame her
they've found me again. I blame Madame Kay I can't hide anymore, not
since they've seen me at the Wal-Mart desperately trying to shield
my face yet unable to look away. She’d been feeling anxious for me
her last day on the phone, saying I should take back the air, throw
the covers to the floor. My child! My child! These were people
(monsters!) I’d invited into my life. She’d seen them walking up and
down the aisles at the Wal-Mart, or shuffling about in the bus
terminal. “Open yours eyes to them and you’ll see they’re people
just like us.”

No. These
aren’t people. Not like me and Madame Kay are people.

I blame her. I
blame her, my walls are buckling again as I rock myself to sleep
every night, the voices like the burners hissing madly.